Easy Reader Hall of Shame

Having finished reading yet another boring German easy reader, I thought I’d dedicate today’s post to easy readers that should never have existed.

Authors of easy readers are trying to trick language learners into learning target language while being entertained with a story. However, some authors don’t do enough entertaining, and it is transparently obvious that the story (or part of it) is just a vehicle for exposure to vocabulary or, in the case of CEFR-based books, practising common scenarios required for surviving in the target language.

So here is my list of the worst easy readers I’ve read:

“Sur les Routes de France” by G. Colquhoun and E. Guergady, published by John Murray, (French).Not only was this boring but it was long: 137 pages of tedium. It is basically a story of a family going on holiday in France, following their trek through different locations. I read this over a number of weeks as it took enormous willpower to finish it. Happily this is out of print. I thought that I must have the last copy in the world, but a quick Google search reveals that there are second-hand copies on the market. What amazes me is that this work, that was first published in 1959, got reprinted several times. I have a second edition copy from 1964, but I see on-line that there was a 1973 3rd edition . That means that at least 14 years of students had to suffer this text! Steer clear of this one. There are many better stories to read.

“Lustige Dialoge” by Harry A. Walbruck, published by National Textbook Company in 1985 (German).This contains 30 short dialogues that are “humorous”. My Goodreads review states it succinctly: “Full of annoying anecdotes involving dated stereotypes passed off as humour. I really struggled to finish the book.“To be fair, some of the dialogues were somewhat humorous, but for the purpose of providing extensive reading material it fails, as the individual dialogues are too short, and there is no motivating reason to read the next one.

“Deuxième Acte” by O.M. Fordham and V.L.R.Lewis, published by Harrap in 1965 (French).This book is a sequence of letters written between members of two families. The content of the letters, as well as the dialogues in the back of the book are very mundane. It was another book that was difficult to finish, but was mercifully short (compared to no. 1) at 76 pages, including exercises that I tend to skip over. One thing that I have found too many of is stories of typical traditional nuclear families doing ordinary things, such as the mother in the kitchen or doing the shopping, the father coming home from work, blah blah. Admittedly some of these books are old, the authors of the various books probably didn’t know of each others work, and the average student wouldn’t have been exposed to more than one of these, but I’m rather sick of the genre.

“Glück gehabt” by Theo Scherling and Elke Burger, published by Langenscheidt in 2010 (German).There are many other books I could list that are like no. 3 in their irksomeness, but I’ve decided to go for variety rather than comprehensiveness. Langenscheidt do a good job at making their text and their audio easy. They also do well in avoiding stereotypes for their characters. For example, in Leo & Co, one of the regular characters is a single mother who is a car mechanic, working with her dad, while Leo himself is an artist who runs a pub/eatery. On the down side, the stories are a bit on the mundane side, with this particular one being the worst I’ve read so far. The story mostly follows the lead character in the act of getting a new apartment. While listening to it I kept waiting for the plot to start, but nothing really happens other than finding out about an apartment, getting it, then moving into it, with a small side story of a colleague hurting their back. Skip this one unless you’re desperate for the practice.

“Technik und Natur” by Mike Lynch, published by Heinemann 1996.I’ve chosen this reading booklet as an example of another problem that often occurs with supposedly easy readers. Some authors control the grammar but use far too much difficult vocabulary. This particular booklet has interesting subject matter for those interested in science and technology, but the percentage of difficult words is too high. There is vocabulary support, but text should really be written in a way that less than 5% of the words require it, since it interrupts the flow of reading.

I think that will do for now. So the moral of the story is, when writing for language language learners:

Don’t be boring,

Optimise the length of the text to allow a good reading session,

Don’t inundate with vocabulary.

It is possible to do the above. There are many examples. I love some of the stories in the Découverte series, such as “Dans la Maison Bleue”, which are full of imagination, and have illustrations that complement the stories. Here’s hoping there are more interesting books in the future. I hope mine will also be enjoyed. I’ve had good feedback so far.